SAN FRANCISCO — It has been nearly five years since the FBI rounded up nearly a dozen Hells Angels members to face allegations of murder and mayhem from California’s wine country to the San Joaquin Valley.
Now, three of the defendants — including club chapter presidents in Fresno and Sonoma —` are set to go before a jury starting Monday, when prosecutors will finally publicly reveal the details of a case that has largely been kept a secret due to alleged security concerns. Even days before trial, the names of key witnesses that include at least one former member of the outlaw biker gang remain hidden from the public, and were only recently revealed to the defense.
The defendants, Jonathan “Jon Jon” Nelson, Russell “Rusty” Ott, and Brian Wendt, are accused of violating the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, through their involvement in the Hells Angels motorcycle club. The trial that is slated to start April 18 and end sometime in June. Attorneys for both sides spent this week trying to narrow down a jury pool of roughly 300 people to 12 main members and several alternates.
A trial memorandum written by prosecutors accuses Hells Angels members of taxing rivals, punishing offshoot groups and aspiring members through beatings, and one allegation that stands out: murdering a fellow member, then disposing of his body through an illegal cremation. The alleged murder victim, Joel Silva, was a sergeant-at-arms of the Hells Angels who had angered others due to his “drug use, erratic behavior, attacks on non-Hells Angels guests at the clubhouse, and bullying,” according to the memo.
Defense attorneys have not yet placed their cards on the table to describe exactly how they will push back against these allegations, but historically the Hells Angels have had better luck than most groups who find themselves staring down the barrel of a RICO case. In the early 1980s, an attempt to prosecute Hells Angel leader Sonny Barger and others in the Bay Area fell apart and resulted in two hung juries and dropped charges. Barger later wrote in his autobiography the biker club would never back down when the government tried to portray it as a gang.
There’s another burden on the prosecution that’s atypical of most murder cases: The U.S. Attorney’s office must convince jurors not only that Silva was murdered by the Hells Angels, but that he’s dead in the first place. The mysterious circumstances surrounding his disappearance may provide the defense an opportunity to argue that this supposed murder victim is simply in hiding.
The witnesses will include at least one former Hells Angels member, known in court records thus far only as Victim 5, who claims he left the group after a severe beating that included being forcibly tattooed. Other witnesses included as-of-yet unnamed “Hells Angels associates” who will testify they were told that the group has a worldwide reach and that their families would be harmed if they cooperated with authorities.
As for the Silva murder plot, prosecutors say it all came to a head in 2014’s Lanconia Motorcycle Week in New Hampshire, where Silva allegedly binged drugs, behaved rambunctiously, then capped it off by blurting out he was going to kill a fellow Hells Angel named Sweeney, who was close to Boston/Salem chapter president Christopher Ranieri, prosecutors allege.
Ranieri and Wendt — the Fresno chapter president — hatched a plan to kill Silva at that moment, according to the prosecution. Upon Wendt’s return to California, Nelson allegedly agreed to the plot.
“Because he was so outspoken and had so many non-Hells Angels connections in Sonoma County, it would be a problem for Silva to simply be expelled,” prosecutors wrote. “It was better if he just disappeared, and Nelson agreed that this should happen.”
But Silva was not naive, and sensed he was in trouble. In the days before his alleged murder, he allegedly told family and friends that if he just disappeared, they shouldn’t believe it. That’s when Ott was brought in to the conspiracy, according to prosecutors; they allege Silva trusted Ott and that Ott convinced him he needed to go to Fresno on July 14, 2014, and smooth things over with the others.
“Silva was told that he would travel to Fresno to address his problems with Brian Wendt; the two would likely fight; and afterward, the issue would be resolved. Ott was a long-tenured, respected member, he and Silva lived right near each other, and Ott was close with him and his family,” prosecutors wrote.
When Silva arrived, Wendt allegedly shot him in the back of the head. Prosecutors have admitted, though, that the FBI searched the Fresno clubhouse for blood or any other physical evidence to back up this story, and found none.
The next morning, a Fresno Hells Angel named Merl Hefferman allegedly intimidated a local crematorium worker, and with other uncharged cohorts, loaded Silva’s body into a furnace, according to prosecutors. Federal authorities allege that Wendt, Nelson, and Ranieri were in frequent contact by phone the day of the murder and that Wendt, Hefferman and another Fresno member, Robbie Huff, also talked several times the following day.
Huff disappeared the following year under mysterious circumstances. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Source: www.mercurynews.com